French R 1/evolution and Paine - Essay Example

ur mongering (Queen said let people eat cake if they did not have bread!), ambitions of rising bourgeoisie, aggrieved fate of farmers and wage earners, influence of ideas of enlightenment mainly from Rousseau and Voltaire, intolerance of absolute monarchy, arrogance and prerogatives of nobility and unquestioned and unchallenged authority of Roman Catholic clergy were all reasons for the revolution. “Moreover, since the Church was so closely bound up with the ancient institutions and now to be swept away, it was inevitable that the Rion, in overthrowing the civil power, should assail the established religion,” Tocqueville (1969, pp. 222-223). Food scarcity, unemployment, poor economic situation, national debt, starvation are other causes.

“The social structure on the European continent still have an aristocratic imprint, the legacy of an era when, because land was virtually the sole source of wealth, those who owned it, assumed all rights over those who tilled it,” (Lefebvre, 1962, p.38). 2. Paine, wrote in 1791 a reply to Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke, actually defended the French Revolution by saying that the revolution was necessary to bring in equality and human liberty, which have been deprived for a very long time in France.

He was a great pamphleteer of his age and had a sarcastic and effective way of expressing things that was hard-hitting for a ready audience. To him the main causes of revolution were denial of equality, liberty and lack of democratic way of life. He was less concerned with the misrule or corrupt ways of administration and was more concerned with the basic rights of man and he opposed monarchy. He had no animosity against the King, but was arguing that the system was fundamentally corrupt. “The King was known to be the friend of nation…but the principles of the government still remained the same” (Rights of Man, 47).

He wanted the people to be represented at all times. He insisted that people have